He writes this piece but has endorsed Mitt Romney...pfft..What he rails against he supports. U.S. Army Retired |
Posted on 01/27/2008 7:11:07 AM PST by jdm
... it gets to make choices about what -- and whom -- to cover. A survey of doctors in Britain's National Health Service show that a significant percentage of providers want government to cut off benefits to the elderly, the obese, smokers, and others:
Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.
Fertility treatment and "social" abortions are also on the list of procedures that many doctors say should not be funded by the state.
The findings of a survey conducted by Doctor magazine sparked a fierce row last night, with the British Medical Association and campaign groups describing the recommendations from family and hospital doctors as "outrageous" and "disgraceful".
On one hand, this makes sense. After all, the taxpayer has to foot the bill for these procedures and these patients. Why should some taxpayers have to subsidize bad behavior? If people choose to smoke, why should non-smoker taxes support the consequences of that habit, especially when it makes non-smokers wait longer for their own health care?
This exposes the fallacy of "free" health care. There is no such thing. Someone has to pay the bills, and it can either be the patients themselves, the insurers, taxpayers, or a combination of the three. No matter what happens, each of these payers will act in some way to ration care, especially regarding cost. The question is which kind of rationing allows for the best access for the individual, and which threatens the greatest intrusion on freedom and personal choice.
In a single-payer system, the government can extort individuals over their personal choices, and even have some rational support for that extortion. In the name of "fairness", they can determine that some people are too old to invest in their care. They can determine that others eat badly and therefore don't deserve to take resources away from people who eat better. At some point, that could translate into preferential treatment for vegetarians or against vegetarians, depending on the whims of the bureaucracy at the moment.
Do you want government to tell you that your mother or father are simply too old to matter anymore? Would you like to have that happen in a system where either the private care choices are out of reach because the government has removed all of the private insurers from the market, or they don't exist, as in Canada? Eventually, state run systems fall back to the bread line model, as they did in the Soviet Union, and someone has to start making choices about who gets the bread.
Reminds me of stories that Soviet citizens would see a line and get in it, not even knowing what for, figuring it must be worth it.
The “useless eaters” example comes to mind.
I want to see the look on an American’s face when they are told, as they are in Canada or ENgland:
“I’m sorry Ma’am, but you missed your appointment. The next opening we have is Dec 14th 2008 at 3 pm. Should I put you down?”
Did you see this link? It’s very much worth the 5 minutes of play-time.
http://www.freemarketcure.com/brainsurgery.php
...After all, the taxpayer has to foot the bill for these procedures and these patients. Why should some taxpayers have to subsidize bad behavior?
There you have it. Under the single-payer system, Aging falls under the category of Bad Behavior.
when someone advocates government run health care, i suggest bto them that they go look at a government run housing projects or the DMV, and then get back to me.
Nanny Ping
Hillarycare. NO!
Because some diseases are PC (like AIDS from homosexual sex) and some are not (like lung cancer from smoking.) The gov't will tell us which diseases liberals approve and are willing to spend $ on, and which ones will get no care and therefore, die.
Nanny State Ping.........
They act as if the elderly, smokers, and obese are NOT taxpayers.............
But the bigger picture here is they are neglecting the fact that these people are ALSO taxpayers and thus have been paying into the system, regardless if they are elderly or have “bad behaviors.”
Makes you wonder about the one presidential candidate who implemented socialized healthcare in his own state.
Examples. brick or stone mason who's back goes ca putt at 55. Or, manufacturing workers who repeatedly lift, lug wires by hand or grab objects or secretaries and office types who type and use computers all day.how about the truck driver and his eventual bad back and kidneys?
And if you are a white male....you'll certainly be at the back of the line.
A couple of excellent blogs by doctors working in England’s National Health Service.
http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/
NHS’s mortatlity rates for treatable conditions exceed those for most of Europe, and, interestingly enough, the systems for most of Europe are less socialistic.
I’ll bet the liberals DON’T consider homosexuality bad behaviour and therefore disqualified for health care. Remember, they can’t change who they are. (/s)
| He writes this piece but has endorsed Mitt Romney...pfft..What he rails against he supports. U.S. Army Retired |
Yes, with the liberals, oftentimes, up is down, and down is up, bad behavior is good and promoted, etc. As RSmithOpt pointed out to me, a person choosing a way to make a living that the left denigrates as backbreaking, even though honest and necessary to society for the service provided, might well be considered by the liberals as disqualified from receiving health care because the person made a bad decision choosing it, while somebody who is a drunk or junkie and never contributes anything will get first class health care. A gov’t system will be run subjectively and based on FEELINGS as is everything liberal.
You will notice that the British concept of denying various services to the old or overweight or alcoholics....didn’t include anyone who has AIDS. The aged aren’t going to sit there and basically allow themselves to be kicked off the medical situation...unless the terminally-ill folks are put under the same situation.
What are they going to do about it? Medicare is tanking rapidly and should pick up more speed with the drug plan added to it. If everyone is tossed into the Medicare mix, or whatever they choose to call it, this is where the biggest chunk of $ is spent and it's the only place to cut costs. Young people don't use excessive amounts of medical care; old people do, and the closer to the end of your life, the more services are used.
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